from AFM’s Founder and first Executive Director, The Rev. Canon Tad de Bordenave
This article begins a series that will take us into the story of the Good Samaritan. The drama has given the world several well-known and well-loved phrases and people. The larger context is a conversation between Jesus and a lawyer. In that we will see how the story brings a path to God’s Good Life.
The lawyer, a learned teacher of the Jewish religion, went to Jesus, carrying within him an uneasy inner life. He raised two questions. The first was to test Jesus. Who was he, and could he be trustworthy in essential matters of faith? The second asked for a check on his own status with God. Was his life secure and favored in the eyes of God?
We know those questions. We’ve been there, asked them, and hoped for good guidance. In the weeks ahead as we explore these questions, we will recognize the challenges that Jesus brought to the lawyer and all who would live closer to God. Turning to the parable, we will see how the Lord’s intention is always to lead to the goodness of God.
The first person in the parable holds center stage throughout. “There was a man who journeyed from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among thieves who beat him, stripped him, and went off leaving him half-dead.” The story revolves around what this man saw and how he was treated. We must ask who today fits the somber description of “stripped, abandoned, and left half-dead?”
The priest and the Levite saw him and “went by on the other side.” How do they respond to the half-dead man? These are the leaders who misdiagnosed the man’s dire condition. They gave the public ways to deal with him that seem plausible but were woefully inadequate. We will see these in today’s guise.
Then there is the Samaritan. He “came to the man, saw him, and had compassion.” This man and his response show the missing piece to the lawyer. Since this is a Samaritan, he blasts our boundaries of racism, prejudice, and hatred.
With refection, we see how the lawyer had no experience of mercy, consequently he had no vision of a God of mercy. His God kept score, tracking good and bad deeds. The lawyer could no more conjure a God of forgiving mercy than he could have a God who would love a Samaritan.
As the dialogue continued, it became clear that Jesus wanted this man to see mercy, his own need for mercy, the mercy of God in the cross, and then the brilliance and the joy of God’s Good Life.
In the weeks ahead we will pause at every step of this drama, expanding each to see the contemporary challenges, the failures, and the steps that lead to the hope that the lawyer finally experienced.
But that’s getting ahead of myself. All of that will come later. For now, we are about to plunge into a major season of the year. The mail-order catalogues, the music in the stores, hangings from doors and streetlamps — all tell us this is the season of Christmas. In deference to the inevitable and deafening messages coming our way, I will only post two more articles in early December and then pause until 2024.
For now, let me give observations on two people – the most overlooked person of the season and the season’s Poster Person. I dare say that if these two could see their reputation in today’s world, they would be most puzzled. Puzzled and saddened.
The most overlooked man is the one whose face should be on the cover of every advertisement and every price tag. That would be Jesus Christ. After all it is his birth that marks the time when businesses cash in, when non-profits gain 75% of income, when online sales set records.
And yet… And yet… A bit hard to catch the connection, is it not? Whose birthday is it that has become the world’s most successful cash cow? What is so significant? The birth of a poor itinerant Jewish carpenter. Yes, it was truly an extraordinary birth. After all, cows and chickens shared the crib where he first lay, and then foreign kings brought him gifts. The highest echelon of angels sang for him, and bottom dweller shepherds visited him. The mother was a virgin and the Father divine. The family was homeless, but everyone could call him a friend. Yes, it is easy to miss the connection from the manger to the cash register, but why bother?
Forbes Magazine predicts a bonanza year for sales. It’s Christmas!
The Poster Person is the Samaritan, but again the main point is omitted in the poster. His message for the season seems to be: Find your man in the ditch and take care of him. The lawyer certainly had his list and wanted to make sure he satisfied the requirement. But there was a missing piece in his figuring. Mercy is where we find the heart of God. God turns “Who is my neighbor?” into “Who was neighbor?” He turned the answer from a noun to a verb. If a noun, then we have something to do — check it off. If a verb, then we find eyes and hearts of compassion — always looking, always caring.
With that insight the lawyer would step forward to acknowledge his coldness, to confess at the foot of the cross, to find forgiveness and a new heart, and then a life in the green pastures and still waters of God’s Good Life.
Next week we will test Jesus, as the lawyer did. Then the following week we will see the wisdom and the love of Jesus for all who go to him with questions.
